The Cardkeeper Chronicles: Books 1-5 (Complete Collection)

by A. C. Nicholls

  That was tough, I thought, trying not to gloat at my achievement. Creating portals was a lot harder than it sounded. I was only used to creating them between the VHS store and the Vault, and it was actually a whole lot more difficult to take us somewhere new. At least Jason was grateful, or so said the look on his face.

  “Keira.” Link spread his wings and hovered over to the shelf beside me, whispering. “If you’d have told me Lassie was coming by, I would have put some paper down.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be rude.”

  “Me? I’m not the one chewing on the couch.”

  I spun quickly to glare at Jason, who stood in the middle of the room, motionless.

  “Made you look,” Link teased.

  I laughed, snorting like some animal and trying to hide it, then swept him playfully off the shelf. “Jason, come in, take a seat. I need to take a shower and I’ll be right with you.”

  As much as I hated to leave the two of them alone together, I had no other choice. My body was numb with cold, my hair a tangled mess. I felt worn down, like I had run some sort of marathon. I left the book and my magicard on the kitchen counter and took a towel with me to the tiny bathroom.

  When I came out a half-hour later, finally refreshed and ready for some research, Jason and Link both sat on the couch. They laughed at something Jason said, but I only caught the tail-end of it. Whatever it was, it was obviously hysterical, but it was also nice to see them getting along. I wondered if…

  No.

  I disappeared around the corner, put on some clothes and returned to the living room with the book. I forcefully wedged myself between the two of them and spread the damp pages out across my lap.

  “What’s this?” Link asked.

  “Everything we need,” I told him, then filled him in on the night’s events.

  The three of us leafed through it together, studying every page. By the time we reached the end, my eyes were starting to close. In spite of my exhaustion, I was ready to go back over it all. The important parts – the things that had really stood out to me – were worth reading a second time.

  “Do we have to do this now?” Link said.

  “Stop complaining,” Jason told him.

  “Boys.” I stood, holding the book open in one hand, rubbing my eyes with the other, and pacing the room as I read. My eyes went over and over the same page. For some reason, the passage stood out, clutching me in an iron grip of words:

  “Curses are nature’s way of saying that one’s ambitions remain unfulfilled. Many curses – the Brythnel curse in particular – may be lifted if such incomplete tasks are finally met. Often referred to as ‘unfinished business’, the spirits are forced to suffer an eternity unless these feats are performed.”

  “I think…” I read it again, to make sure I had understood it correctly. “Yes. I think that ‘vanquis ven-laycis’ isn’t the only way to send these spirits.”

  Jason sat up. “No?”

  “Well, according to this book, the spirits are only here because they’ve had such a curse placed on them.”

  “Who would do such a thing?”

  “Beats me.” I shrugged. “But if we can find a way to ease their suffering and avoid going toe-to-toe with them all over again, don’t you think we should try?”

  Link groaned and began to fidget, while Jason chewed on his lower lip.

  “Come on,” I said, growing more and more excited by the minute. The chance to do something good danced in front of me, just out of reach – something other than beating up mages and leveling construction sites in the process. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

  Link raised his hand first. “How are we supposed to do this?”

  “Yeah,” Jason chimed in. “How do we find out what they want?”

  “It’s simple. We ask them.”

  While Jason sat in silence, gnawing on his knuckle, Link erupted into a fit of laughter. “Oh yeah,” he said, struggling to breathe. “Because last time you tried to talk to one of these spirits, everything went dandy. Remind me, how long until that library reopens?”

  “That was different,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Back then we didn’t know any better. Now,” I raised the book in front of me and tapped it with my fingernail, “we do.”

  Jason cleared his throat and spoke up. “Let’s say we do this. Let’s say we find them, ask them what they want, and then go ahead and do it for them. How do we go about it? I mean, their appearances are sporadic at best. The only sure location was the mall, and you already sent those spirits packing.”

  I grinned. “That’s what the book is for.”

  Over the next couple of hours, I studied the four double-pages that explained how to locate a spiritual hotspot. I didn’t own a map of Chicago, so I pulled one up on my laptop and used editing software to draw in the sites of reported spirits. Jason and Link leaned over me as I worked, using the touchpad to draw a black ring around each location.

  “Keira,” Link crawled up my back, digging his nails into the skin. It was okay – it didn’t hurt. I was just pleased that he seemed to notice what I’d discovered. “The locations are… in a circle. Is that a coincidence?”

  “Not at all.” I then drew lines between each of the sites, connecting the dots until they all met in the middle to reveal a location. I circled that one, too. “And there’s our hotspot.”

  Jason, who had sat patiently while I’d searched for the spirits’ sites, finally sat forward with his chin resting on his fist. “A movie theater?”

  “A closed-down movie theater.” I actually held fond memories of that place. It was where I used to go every month with my parents when I was a kid. It was where my father had taken me to see a little flick called Star Wars.

  “Phew. Right. So then, are you ready?”

  “Actually…” I glanced over my shoulder at Link, whose arms were folded across his chest, then turned back around to see Jason. “I think I need a good night’s rest before we tackle this one. Once I’ve gotten my eight hours and readjusted to my magicard, we’ll make a move.”

  Jason nodded, standing up. “Fair enough. I’ve got some explaining to do anyway.”

  “Explaining?”

  “To a friend of mine. He’s going to want to know where his car is.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. In fact, I’d been so wrapped up in this business with the spirits and my feelings for Jason, that I’d barely stopped to think about anyone else. It made a thought pop into my head, and like all great decisions, I acted on it immediately.

  “I’ll show you out,” I said. “I need to talk to you anyway.”

  As I passed Link – who mockingly smooched the back of his hand – I took Jason softly by the elbow and followed him out to the landing. I remembered this spot mostly as the location of our first kiss, where I had first confirmed my affections for him. Something told me not to expect a repeat.

  “I think we should part ways,” I said.

  Jason’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “It’s for the best. You’ve been a great help to me – really – but you’re going to get in trouble with Lena.” Lena was the alpha wolf, and I’d had the great misfortune of meeting her a few weeks ago. A terrifying, monstrous woman if I ever saw one, but deceptively beautiful.

  Jason’s head sagged. “I… suppose you’re right.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I assured him. “But will you?”

  “Me? I’ll be fine.”

  “You will?”

  “Yeah.”

  My hand reached out for his. Tell him, said a voice in my head. Tell him that you want to see him again. Tell him that you wish things were different. I rebelled against my heart, stifling my words and watching his expression.

  Nothing changed.

  “Go careful tomorrow,” he said, before leaning in to land a soft kiss on my cheek.

  “I will.”

  “Goodbye, Keira Poe.”

  I watched him leave, feeling my hear
t sink more with each step he took toward the bottom of the stairs. When he slipped through the door and exited the building, I leaned back into the wall beside my apartment, hating myself for the turn of events.

  What have I done?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The movie theater was located on a side street in a quiet district. On either side of it were other derelict buildings, abandoned and forgotten, like the city had just given up on this place, letting it slip through the cracks of time. What once had been a lively street full of restaurants and interesting places to shop, now housed an empty movie theater on a lonely stretch of road. I had never seen anything so sad.

  “Are you ready?” Link asked.

  “Barely.”

  “I’ve got your back.”

  “I know you do.”

  I looked up at the theater. The sign above the boarded-up door still advertised Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It reminded me of the theater’s age and just like all other abandoned buildings, squatters had taken up residence inside to shield themselves from the bitter winter elements.

  Approaching, I pressed my ear to the door and listened for voices.

  Nothing.

  A jumble of noises screamed inside my head though. I could feel the warmth of the magicard, aglow in my pocket as it went to work in providing me with telepathy. Those noises – the ones that filled my mind with a mess of unintelligible words – grew dimmer until they evaporated.

  “There’s something in here,” I told Link.

  “Spirits?”

  “I think so.”

  I stepped back, looking for an entry point. The busted board hanging from the open window on the second floor looked promising, so I took my time in climbing up there and entered the abandoned theater.

  “This is creepy,” Link said, hovering a few paces behind me.

  Nodding, I looked around at the empty room. With what little light shone in from outside, I could see that the wallpaper had been scratched off, hanging in tatters from the dirty walls. Some of the floorboards had been smashed. The walls had been used as canvasses for graffiti. I ventured further in, expecting – but not ready for – a fight. All I really wanted was to talk to the spirits, to find out what I could about their unfinished business. As hostile as I had ever known them to be, I wondered whether it would be possible to get a straight answer. Hell, I didn’t even know if they were capable of full sentences.

  The theater turned out to be entirely empty. After checking every room, I returned to the one and only screen, and stood before it in a thin ray of light that bled in through a hole in the far wall. I looked out upon the rows of empty seats and called out, hoping for some ghostly echo to return, but nothing echoed back.

  “Maybe you were wrong.” Link flew around, his tiny white wings flickering so fast that it seemed as though they were barely moving. After scouting in a small loop around the first few rows – where the darkness began – he returned to my side. “There’s nothing here.”

  Just as he said it, a sound clunked to my left. I spun in a circle, my blood racing through me like it contained tiny tacks, each prick making me shiver. “Is someone there?” I called out, waiting for any sign that I wasn’t alone.

  Silence followed; awful, uncomfortable silence.

  Followed by a spine-chilling wail.

  Tearing through thin air, a twisted, transparent face rushed at me. Its mouth hung open as it screamed out in tortured agony, coming at me so fast that I had no time to react. The moment it struck me, I flew halfway across the room, hitting my shoulder on a chair as I landed in a horrible mess of tangled limbs.

  “Keira!” Link flew to my aid, but before he could make it five feet, the spirit turned and took hold of him before hurling him into the distance like a baseball.

  This was it. If I was going to fight, I had to do it now. If I wanted to talk, I would have to make my intentions clear. My shoulder burning up, I pushed myself off the ground and held my hands out in front of me. “I didn’t come here to fight!”

  The spirit returned, the see-through green body of a man materializing in front of me in quick, violent flashes. When it targeted me, it paused, and then quickly resumed its assault. This time it came at me faster, harder, thumping me on the nose and making my eyes water and knocking me backwards.

  I hit the wall, my back making a dent as it collided with the crumbling tiles. My body went limp and I fell to the ground in a puff of dust. My mouth watered as I endured the pain, slowly and agonizingly climbing up onto one knee and looking around for the spirit.

  It had vanished.

  “I want…” I felt a warm oozing on my upper lip and reached to touch it. Just as I thought; blood. There was little I could do about it now. All I could do was yell into the empty theater. “I want to hear your story!”

  The spirit returned, whooshing past me, sweeping by like a sentinel on patrol. I thought it was analyzing me, and any sudden movements would only be seen as a threat. I made a deliberate effort to keep my hands by my sides, watching the greenish cloud float by. I suddenly realized how defenseless I really was.

  Suddenly, the spirit stopped in front of me. All I could see was the hollows of its eyes, staring right through me like it was merely an object of wrath – as though it had no thoughts or feelings, or any will to seek peace.

  “Speak,” it said, only it didn’t use words.

  I felt the words float through my mind as I read its thoughts.

  Behind the spirit, I caught sight of Link, limping along the floor with a crooked wing. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him like that. From what he’d told me, it didn’t really hurt, but his wing would be rendered useless until it healed an hour or two later. I could really relate to the healing factor, but I still felt bad that he had hurt his leg. I read anger in his eyes, and had to send a message to his mind.

  “Don’t interfere,” I said inside his head, watching his expression of recognition.

  Link hesitated, then nodded.

  I turned back to the spirit. “I had no idea what you were. I didn’t know about the curse. That was why I came to the others in the first place. But I want to make things right. I want to hear you – to know about your past. And if I can, I want to help you.”

  The spirit grew larger, looming over me like some great tower of frenetic energy. It reminded me of the Vault. When it shook tremendously and then shrunk back down, its eyes appeared within its translucent skull. “Don’t send us.”

  “I won’t.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and leaned back into the wall. My vulnerable posture said that I was listening, that I didn’t want to fight.

  “Curse,” the spirit thought.

  “Yes, curse. What can you tell me about it?”

  “Why… attack?”

  Was it asking why I’d attacked the other spirits? I thought of the one at the library, and suddenly understood that it had probably come at me when it saw the fire in my palm. Again, at the mall, they must have felt like they were being threatened. And now? Well, if they were able to communicate with one another, I could see why this particular spirit had sent me soaring into the row of chairs.

  “I was asked to send you,” I confessed. “By The New Witches of Belvoir.”

  In an aggressive wisp of greenish-white haze, the spirit roared and drifted upward, spinning around as it whisked off into the distance, into nothingness. Its thoughts became a screaming nightmare inside my head. “Witches!”

  “Yes!” I yelled, dropping to my knees and covering my ears. The high-pitched sound seemed to pierce my drums. “They were cleaning up the streets, asking me to send the spirits on their behalf. They told me to say vanquis…” I paused, stopping myself from accidentally sending this spirit. “They told me how to be rid of you, but I would rather help you.”

  The screaming suddenly stopped. A trail of jade air drifted by, settling before me.

  I stood, lowered my hands. A quick glance to my right told me that Link crouched next to me, nursing his wounded leg. Ter
ror still flowed through me, weighing me down. I chose my next words carefully. “Tell me? Tell me how to ease your suffering?”

  Silence, and then the spirit spoke directly into my mind.

  “Witches. Cursed.”

  I felt my face contort. Confusion consumed me. “The witches are cursed?”

  “No.” The spirit spun around like a ghostly wheel. “Witches. Killed.”

  My face flushed and my legs shook. Was I understanding this right? Were the witches responsible for the deaths of these spirits? Was it their fault that these poor beings were cursed to roam the earth? I hoped not. “Are you telling me that the witches killed you?”

  Before I could get an answer, the spirit began to drift away.

  “No,” I screamed, chasing it across the front of the screen. I couldn’t lose it now. I wanted to find out what it had to say. I had to, or else my only remaining option would be to consult the witches. But when the voices in my head simmered down into complete tranquility, I realized I’d just lost it all, leaving me with nothing but more questions.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  My head a painful jumble of thoughts, I took the long walk home through Chicago. The cold air added to my discomfort, but I was so distracted that I barely noticed. All I could think about was the spirit’s tortured words.

  ‘Witches. Killed.’

  What was that even supposed to mean? I knew that witches had a bad reputation, but could it really be that they were involved in the deaths of these lost souls to begin with? I could probably read their thoughts if I got close enough. If I…

  “I should have known we would end up here.”

  My eyes drifted to my shoulder, where Link was perched with his arms folded. I swept a glance at my surroundings, taking in the long, chain-link fence, the city in the distance, and the winter sun beaming down on the sewage plant.

  “Oh,” I said, and nothing more.

  “Pull it together, girl.”

  I studied the sewage plant – the werewolves’ lair. The last time I’d been here, I was handing over a prisoner by the name of Victor Kronin. I never did find out what they’d done with him, but I knew it couldn’t be pleasant.